Species traits and catchment-scale habitat factors influence the occurrence of freshwater mussel populations and assemblages

October 1, 2016

Conservation of freshwater unionid mussels presents unique challenges due to their distinctive life cycle, cryptic occurrence and imperilled status. Relevant ecological information is urgently needed to guide their management and conservation.
We adopted a modelling approach, which is a novel application to freshwater mussels to enhance inference on rare species, by borrowing data among species in a hierarchical framework to conduct the most comprehensive occurrence analysis for freshwater mussels to date. We incorporated imperfect detection to more accurately examine effects of biotic and abiotic factors at multiple scales on the occurrence of 14 mussel species and the entire assemblage of the Tar River Basin of North Carolina, U.S.A.
The single assemblage estimate of detection probability for all species was 0.42 (95% CI, 0.36–0.47) with no species- or site-specific detection effects identified. We empirically observed 15 mussel species in the basin but estimated total species richness at 21 (95% CI, 16–24) when accounting for imperfect detection.
Mean occurrence probability among species ranged from 0.04 (95% CI, 0.01–0.16) for Alasmidonta undulata, an undescribed Lampsilis sp., and Strophitus undulatus to 0.67 (95% CI, 0.42–0.86) for Elliptio icterina. Median occurrence probability among sites was

Publication Year	2016
Title	Species traits and catchment-scale habitat factors influence the occurrence of freshwater mussel populations and assemblages
DOI	10.1111/fwb.12807
Authors	Tamara J. Pandolfo, Thomas J. Kwak, W. Gregory Cope, Ryan J. Heise, Robert B. Nichols, Krishna Pacifici
Publication Type	Article
Publication Subtype	Journal Article
Series Title	Freshwater Biology
Index ID	70182245
Record Source	USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization	Coop Res Unit Atlanta

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